Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) by Stephen Y — 11 Jul 2017

This was entertaining, but it wasn't special. For Spiderman ultra-fans, this was less than entertaining. This was a letdown.

The character of Peter Parker/Spiderman in "Homecoming" is very loosely based on Marvel's actual Spiderman. Semi-spoiler: in this film, Spiderman doesn't use/appear to have "spidey senses", an important intuitive power that makes it incredibly hard to sneak up on Peter Parker. Impressive reaction time is definitely a trait for the Homecoming hero, but this is vastly different than spidey senses.

Semi-spoiler: the "Homecoming" Spiderman doesn't make his suit himself. In the end, Tony Stark creates it for him. This deviation takes away from Spiderman having to start out all alone. The Marvel Peter Parker makes mistakes and learns from those mistakes, but he doesn't get help from hero mentors; he learns how to do everything himself, from building his web-shooters to building his suit. Parker, your average bookworm, and Spiderman, his more confident version of himself, should have a struggle: he's figuring this whole thing out. All by himself. "Homecoming" takes away from this big time.

Oh, Spiderman's suit could talk to him. Just like Iron Man's suit. That was painful.

Homecoming Spidey gets a friend named "Ned". The actor does an okay job, but the character (i.e., the writing behind the character) is just not funny. He just doesn't fit.

The MJ of Homecoming (not "Mary Jane" but "Michelle Jones"...why?) is not Marvel's Mary Jane. At all. Zendaya might've done a good job acting her part; who knows? She barely does anything in the story, and her character does nothing to move the plot forward. Semi-spoiler: having a more gothic, moodier sense of humor, MJ flips Peter Parker off at the dance, and its context implies this should be funny. It's random and awkward.

Aunt May is alluded to as "hot" or attractive at least three times across three different characters. She's young and has none of the Aunt May mentor traits that the Marvel Aunt May has.

Tom Holland and Michael Keaton were great. The huge miss here has little to do with the actors and everything to do with the writing. Major deviations from the original fan-favorite superhero Spiderman make this film a flop (what was wrong with how Stan Lee and Steve Ditko envisioned him?).

Of course it's having great immediate success; it's Spiderman. He's one of the coolest Marvel heroes out there because he's a kid who has to figure life out. A kid who gets the feels like everybody else. A kid who has problems at school and home and trying to be a lone-wolf superhero. But that's not what this film was.